almost instantaneous, like that of an escaping spring; but the one imposes
its rhythm on the other. From this point of view mind and matter appear
not as two things opposed to each other, as static terms in fixed
antithesis, but rather as two inverse directions of movement; and, in
certain respects, we must therefore speak not so much of matter or mind as
of spiritualisation and materialisation, the latter resulting automatically
from a simple interruption of the former. "Consciousness or
superconsciousness is the rocket, the extinguished remains of which fall
into matter." ("Creative Evolution", page 283.)

What image of universal evolution is then suggested? Not a cascade of
deduction, nor a system of stationary pulsations, but a fountain which
spreads like a sheaf of corn and is partially arrested, or at least
hindered and delayed, by the falling spray. The fountain itself, the
reality which is created, is vital activity, of which spiritual activity
represents the highest form; and the spray which falls is the creative act
which falls, it is reality which is undone, it is matter and inertia. In a
word, the supreme law of genesis and fall, the double play of which
constitutes the universe, comprises a psychological formula.

Everything begins in the manner of an invention, as the fruit of duration
and creative genius, by liberty, by pure mind; then comes habit, a kind of
body, as the body is already a group of habits; and habit, taking root,
being a work of consciousness which escapes it and turns against it, is
little by little degraded into mechanism in which the soul is buried.


III.

The main lines and general perspective of Mr Bergson's philosophy now